Page - 24 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 01/01

24 | roger Odin www.jrfm.eu 2015, 1/1, 23–30 of relevance chosen by the theorist. The last point is particularly important: by limit- ing the number of constraints selected, it is the choice of an axis of relevance that allows analysis (in a given context the number of constraints is such that it cannot be controlled). Up till now the communication spaces i have constructed have been essentially spaces with a physical existence (family, archives, television, university, etc.), but to explain what is going on in various communication contexts, it seems necessary to add mental spaces2. According to René Loureau, “our ego is a bric-à-brac of institutions”;3 one might also say that it is a bric-à-brac of communication spaces, some of which are institutions, others not. What i call “mental spaces” are the spaces we carry around with us. a single example may illustrate this notion. We have in us what one might call a cinematic mental space, corresponding to the projection of a film in a cinema, on a big screen, in the course of a showing of fixed duration. The existence of this space explains the risk of our being frustrated by a film shown on television (or worse still on a mobile phone) and all the subterfuges deployed to remedy such frustration by the producers of programmes (for example, the introductory sequence imitating our entry into the cinema as in La dernière séance, a french TV show presented by eddy Mitchell, with credits recalling the myth of movies, etc.). The same is true of similar tricks by viewers, setting up home cinemas in the hope of conjuring up (at least in part) the cinema communication space and making the associated psychological ef- fort to build a “mental bubble” enabling them to cut themselves off from the outside environment and enter the film.4 I shall now look at three films that explicitly bring into play the religious commu- nication space in terms of what they represent: a film promoting the Roman Catholic Church, Catholics Come Home (2008),5 and two publicity films, one for Pepsi (Kung Fu Pepsi Crush, 2002–2003),6 the other for Coke light (Have a Great Break, 2005).7 for this analysis, i shall use as the axis of relevance the relations between religion and communication. for what purpose is religion brought into play? how (communication mode problem)? Which audience is being targeted? With what likelihood of success? it should be borne in mind that the religious communication space may appear in physical form (churches, temples, synagogues, mosques, shrines and so on), bringing into play specific actors (popes, bishops, priests, rabbis, imams, monks), and in men- tal form. for all believers and non-believers (religion being a cultural phenomenon no 2 Odin 2015. 3 loureau 1970, 48. 4 “The institution of this ‘bubble’ allows him to ideally replicate the spatial structure that characterises the movie theater, even in open and practicable environments”, Casetti/sampietro, 2012, 22. 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX7YXj7MltEProgram [accessed 29 June 2015]. 6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nMYFb0WPJk [accessed 29 June 2015]. 7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6my9ZNxUL8 [accessed 29 June 2015].